


Just some quiet.

by thepeachcompany (AiTaiga)



Category: Persona 5, Persona Series
Genre: Drabble, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Mild descriptions of violence, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, its sort of shuharu but can be read either way, post-November, spoilers for November
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-05
Updated: 2017-11-05
Packaged: 2019-01-29 18:48:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12637023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AiTaiga/pseuds/thepeachcompany
Summary: Akira hasn't slept in days, so Haru makes him a cup of coffee.





	Just some quiet.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Tea Mom on twitter](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Tea+Mom+on+twitter).



> I HAVE A LOT OF FEELINGS ABOUT PTSD AKIRA AND NOBODY EVER TALKS ABOUT IIIITTTT except Tea Mom who inspired me to write this because there's not enough ShuHaru.  
> Uuuh I'm sorry it's a drabble.  
> Also hmu over on thepeachcompany on tumblr for more drabbles.  
> I'm sorry it's formatted the way it is, it's because I'm blind as a bat.

“You’re not sleeping again, aren’t you?”  
Haru’s voice is soft amid the clinking of glassware and the bubbling hiss of the coffee brewer. The tabletop is blessedly cold against his cheek while Leblanc hazes in and out of focus.

Of course he’s not sleeping. He tries, every night, and he can’t.

_His jaw crunches nauseatingly beneath the gritty sole of filthy shoes. Pain blossoms along his skull until his eyesight vibrates with it. The world shifts in and out of focus, and the sound of mocking laughter makes bile rise in his throat._

“So you want your coffee very strong, correct?” There’s the faintest giggle to her voice. He doesn’t answer, but she turns back to the machine as if he had. “No milk, right? Just two sugars, and a pinch of ginger...” He forces his eyesight back into focus long enough to watch her curls bob about behind the counter, her muted hum barely reaching over the drone of the TV.

His body feels so heavy.

He can’t sleep. If he drifts too far, it gets too dark, and suddenly his warm, soft bed becomes cold, hard stone.

_Liquid fire shoots through his veins, his scream catches behind clenched teeth. If he drifts too far, he’ll wake up, and time will have rewound. He’d have failed his mission and eaten the barrel of a gun, too lost in a sea of poison to scream._

One time he truly had awoken to pain, his hand stinging and oozing blood while Morgana uttered apologies from his lap. “I couldn’t wake you up.” He insisted, his ears pressed back flat against his skull. Akira didn’t ask why he needed to be woken, he could feel the sweat soaking the mattress, and his lungs burned as if he’d either ceased breathing or had spent the night screaming himself raw. When no one showed up with noise complaints, he concluded it was the former.

_Takemi offers him a cocktail of drugs to help him sleep, but the risk of addiction is high. The thought of being sedated again drains the color from his face, and before he knows it the floor tips quickly towards his face and he sees his breakfast in the bottom of a bowl held beneath his chin._

It’s why Haru’s here right now, hovering beside the table with a steaming cup balanced carefully on a saucer. Slowly, he peels his cheek from the table with a grunt, but doesn’t sit quite straight. She sets the cup carefully before him, and he mutters a gruff “Thanks, Haru.” His throat protests the words, and welcomes the warm caress of bitter coffee.

They’d started taking turns visiting after the night Morgana bit him. He couldn’t help but suspect that the cat had spilled the beans despite their unspoken solidarity. No one asked about November though. No one questioned his wounds, or how he was feeling. Ryuji brought over video games, Yusuke wanted “inspiration”, which meant he wanted free food and access to Akira’s space heater. Ann brought him class notes while popping her gum, and Makoto sometimes escorted him to go shopping when he needed. Futaba never said much, she just looked at him in a way that he felt in his core, and tried to sneakily slide a little more curry onto his plate.

“No,” Haru says softly as she slides into the booth beside him, making him scoot closer to the wall. There’s a brief moment of silence, and she pats a hand to her lap. “lay back down.”

For a moment he glances between her hand and her face, fingers still curled around the mug. There’s no flush on her cheeks, nor hesitation in her eyes. They look far more warm and inviting than the steaming cup in his grasp. Could she hear the way his entire body screamed to accept the offer? Certainly she saw the way he eyed her lap, because the smile on her lips finally reached the corners of her eyes, and her fingers patted her fluffy sweater again.

Stiff fingers finally unfurl from the handle of the cup, joints popping with protest. Like the sugar cube that had once floated at the top of his coffee, he sinks down onto her lap, melting into the warm cashmere. The ache flees from his muscles, soothed by the faint smell of fresh soil, and Haru’s soft perfume. Twisting onto his back, he folds his hands across his belly and simply stares up at her beaming face.

“Now what?”

She hums, carefully plucking his glasses from his face. They make a soft clink when she sets them on the table beside the coffee she had never intended for him to drink. It’d been a choice, he realizes. Chase away the dreams with bitter sweet drugs at the cost of another piece of his sanity, or-

“Close your eyes.”

He already knows what she sees. Bruised eyelids, and scleras webbed with blood. The bruise on his cheek is a sickly yellow, and no amount of ice nor turmeric paste was being kind to him. The scrape on his temple had finally faded into a rough, red patch, still ringed with rouge. The split in his lip doesn’t agree with the cold weather, nor happiness, nor eating, making it painful to fake the smile for her.

“I don’t want to.”

Her hum is chiding, her lips creasing into a small pout. Gentle fingers brush away his messy bangs, then card through his curls and- oh no- his scalp tingles pleasantly with the pass of her nails. Nausea twists in his gut, his heart skipping in his chest. She’s not looking at the bruises on his skin, nor the sickly parlor of his skin.

Despite her soft features and bubbly demeanor, she’s still older, still more mature, still wiser. She says his name in a way that makes his throat seize up and his eyes water. It’s not pitying, nor chiding. It’s a thousand apologies in three syllables, it’s everything they promised not to say to each other before that night. It’s every unspoken word between them when they sunk their fingers into wet dirt, grinning like children again. For a brief, terrifying moment, he thinks she’ll say it out loud and he is absolutely at her mercy.

Her hand continues stroking his hair, smoothing defiant curls from his face. Panic jolts through him at the gentle brush of her other hand against his mended cheek. Fingers pause, stone still as she watches the rapid rise and fall of his chest winding back down. When the tension melts away, the warmth of her palm splays across his skin. The tender caress soothes his aches and makes his eyelids all the more heavier.

“What if... What if I sing to you?” Her voice wavers faintly, her pretty pink lips pressed into a pale line of brewing courage. “What if I stay, right here, with you, and sing? Would that be alright?”

There’s silence between them, only for a second, but Akira feels as if they’re suspended in time. The weather man drones on softly about flu season, but the clock on the wall only ticks once. Slowly, tiredly, he blinks, his eyelids threatening not to open again if he isn’t careful. “Haru, I know what you’re trying to do.”

She starts a little when his hand gently encircles the one caressing his cheek, a band-aid scraping gently against the back of her knuckles. Glossy lips tremble, if only for a moment, and the warmth in her eyes hardens. Haru disappears beneath Noire’s unyielding stare.

“Then let me.” The subtle crack of her voice ruins the illusion of a metaverse rebel. It’s a plea, not a demand. His eyes follow the thick bob of her throat as she swallows thickly, and he imagines it probably burns as much as his own does right now. “Please? Let me do this one thing for you.”

It’s the words unspoken that make his heart wrench. Haru had been the only one to not pity him, nor tip toe awkwardly around his ordeal. She didn’t baby him, nor act as if it never happened. But God, he thinks he’d rather her look at him that way, instead of the guilt that drowns her coffee colored eyes.

“Okay,” He whispers, and turns his face into her captured palm. His lips brush against budding callouses, still fresh and smooth. Her hand smells like coffee beans and sugar, with the faintest hint of this morning’s harvest. It’s a delight to watch the flush blossom across her cheeks from the corner of his eyes. “Okay.”

When he lowers his hands back over his belly, she sinks her own back into his hair. The TV becomes white noise beneath her gentle humming, and the ticking of the clock disappears like phantoms in the morning sun. Wrapped in her scent, soothed by her affections, he gives into the protest of his burning eyelids.

For a long moment he lays there, waiting for his stomach to drop, for his heart to rev like an engine in his ribs. It never comes. It’s just the shadows behind his eyelids and the weight of his body sinking into the sea of unconsciousness. Pain makes itself known in waves, his joints settling like the floorboards of an old house, the punishment for his habits. At one point the humming gets a little louder, and something soft presses against the cut on his brow. They move against his skin, just a hair’s brush trying to form words, but darkness drags him under before his ears can register.

It’s not the most restful sleep he’s ever had, but it’s quiet, and that’s all he ever wanted.


End file.
